2013 Tour – Stage 12 – Passing the old guard?

Christian Prudhomme and the ASO must be breathing a sigh of relief that the sprinters are injecting a much needed shot of drama into the Tour as the GC seems to be falling short in that area. As the biggest battle in the GC competition is David Brailsford flailing at *those* media questions as if they were persistent blood-thirsty mosquitoes, on the road the sprinters are really bringing the goods. Marcel Kittel, perhaps yesterday, announced that he had arrived beating the other sprinters straight up. Today, he has confirmed he has by coming around Mark Cavendish… that’s right, coming around (nobody does that) a perfectly lead-out Mark Cavendish to win the 12th Stage. Yes, it’s true Greipel wasn’t there due to a crash, but I don’t know if he could have done what Kittel has.

I’m not going to pile on Cav, because legitimately, you can quite validly argue that he is the best sprinter in the history of the sport, and he’s still only 28. However, we’ve seen something today and without being disrespectful to what each of these guys have accomplished in their respective careers, and without resorting to hyperbole to talk up Kittel, I’m going to put all my thoughts, all the drama that is unfolding in this sprint competition into one question:

Are we looking at the year when Cavendish doesn’t win on the Champs-Elyssees?